With its powerful Snapdragon 888 chip and its flagship camera set, the Mi 11i is the main competitor of the Galaxy S20 FE 5G. Read Xiaomi Mi 11i review in Wironal.
Xiaomi Mi 11i review
Until recently, in response to those looking for a smartphone in the 600$ price range, we were immediately introducing the 5G version of the Galaxy S20 FE, but now it seems that Samsung’s economic flagship is no longer unrivalled. Mi 11i represents Xiaomi’s new price range, a smartphone that, like its name also evokes in mind, combines Chinese flagship DNA with their mid-range and economic products.
Xiaomi Mi 11i does not have a flamboyant QHD display, metal frame, and giant camera of its flagged brother, but it uses the same powerful Chip as the Snapdragon 888, has a glass body, and a high-quality OLED display. Is Mi 11i the best economic flagship in the market? Follow along with Xiaomi Mi 11i review.
Design and quality of Xiaomi Mi 11i
From the flagged Mi 11 to the Redmi Note 10 economic device and the sound of the mi 11i we’re looking at, the general 2020-2021 Xiaomi products have many apparent similarities, similarities that, more than anything else, stem from the stair bulge and relatively large camera in the corner of the back panel. Xiaomi, with such a thick bulge, is trying to instill that its smartphones have an efficient camera, but it has added more to the phone’s morsel while on the table!
We had 11i and Redmi Note 10 Pro at the same time to check and we have to say, as long as you don’t pay attention to the rounder corners of the camera bulge in the Redmi Note 10 Pro, it’s hard to separate the two phones, The Mi 11i and Redmi Note 10 Pro are also very similar in dimensions and weights. The dimensions of the Mi 11 IP 7.8 × 76.4 × 163.7 mm and its weight is 196 grams, so it is not as difficult to use as the 225g Poco X3 phone, but still, to access the corners of the display, the device must be moved on the hand.
Xiaomi says the back and front panels of the Mi 11i are made of Gorilla Glass 5, but the frame of the device is plastic. Mi 11i is sold in matte white shell and silver colors with a glossy black color. We had a white shellfish version to examine, which conveys an extremely pleasant mood to the user, and does not show the effects of stains and fat on itself. The white color of the Mi 11i has a smooth, soft coating on its surface, which we had experienced earlier in some other devices such as the Poco F3.
The 6.67-inch Mi 11i screen with narrow margins (excluding low margins!) and its flat edges are located on the back of the glass made of Gorilla Glass 5 and has nearly 86 percent of the phone’s front space. The presence of a plastic strip between the display and the frame reminds us of the economic nature of the Mi 11i, as with other inexpensive devices. The Chinese have placed the selfie camera in a small hole in the display, and unfortunately, there is no bulletin light on top of the display.
Despite the OLED-being of the display panel, there is no fingerprint sensor under the display, instead the Chinese have integrated the Mi 11i power key on the right edge of the frame with the fingerprint sensor. Accessing the Power Key is easy, but you will definitely see the phone vibrate many times during the day due to the random touch of the sensor.
The plastic frame hosts 11i at the bottom edge of the speaker valve, USB 2.0 Type-C port, and dual SIM card port (no, no memory card ports!). On the upper edge, there’s an aperture frame for the upper speaker, microphone, and IR Blaster module, so you can use the Mi 11i to control some of your home appliances.
Xiaomi says the Mi 11i smartphone is resistant to dust or spraying water droplets by receiving an IP53 certificate from the IEC.
Screen & Speaker Xiaomi Mi 11i
The Mi 11i display uses a renovation rate of 120 Hz and a touch sensitivity rate of 360 Hz, thus providing a very smooth and psychological user experience, enabling games to run at a rate of over 120 frames per second, and in competitive games, it responds very quickly to user touch commands.
Xiaomi calls the Mi 11i renovation rate versatility, but in practice we only see that in many apps such as Google Photos or even games such as PUBG and CoD, the refresh rate remains constant at 60 Hz and if the screen is touched, it reaches 120 Hz. In some environments, such as the recent app list or video playback in image mode, Mi 11i brings the display’s refresh rate to 90 Hz.
The Chinese talk about the Mi 11i display with very high confidence, according to Xiaomi, the company’s economic flagship “has received the A+rating from DisplayMate, displays colors with very high accuracy, has a 100% coverage of the DCI-P3 color space, its brightness reaches 1,300 nits and is compatible with the HDR10+ standard.”
Like most Xiaomi phones, Xiaomi Mi 11i offers many modes for display color settings, which are mostly confusing:
- Auto mode: In this case, the display colors change according to the ambient light.
- Original mode: The natural state that, according to Xiaomi, shows the most accurate colors.
- Saturated mode: In this case, saturated colors are shown.
- Advanced mode: In this case, you can access special color profiles:
- Enhanced mode: Regardless of ambient light or display content, the widest color range appears.
- Original mode: Display colors are calibrated based on the phone’s content.
- P3 mode: Regardless of ambient light or display content, the DCI-P3 color range is always shown.
- SRGB mode: Regardless of ambient light or display content, the sRGB color range always appears.
Since Advanced modes are of no particular importance to most users, we also reviewed the performance of the display in only three modes: Original, Auto and Saturated. In Auto mode, the DCI-P3 color spectrum is fully coated and color error is acceptable, but colors tend to cool. Saturated mode works more or less like Auto mode, but original mode not only covers the sRGB color spectrum completely, but also has excellent color accuracy and very good temperature, so if you care about the accuracy of the colors, you just need to use original mode.
Xiaomi’s economic flagship in our lighting test achieved an average brightness of 563 and 830 nits in manual and automated modes, so the device has a very good readability under the sun, but it is not at the best level of the market.
Xiaomi uses stereo speakers today even on its mid-range and economic smartphones, so it’s no surprise to see such speakers in its economic flagship. As expected, the main speaker is at the bottom edge of the device, while the conversation speaker plays the second speaker in the upper margin of the display. We evaluate the loudness of the Mi 11i at a very good level, the smartphone performs better at producing high and middle frequencies (musical instruments such as electric guitar and human voice), but at low frequencies, it does not beat some competitors.
Xiaomi Mi 11i Software and Interface
Xiaomi’s flagship economy is sold by default with Android 11 and MIUI 12.5, the latest version of the Chinese proprietary user interface. Regardless of Xiaomi and Google’s proprietary software, there are few miscellaneous applications, including NETFLIX and a few games installed on Xiaomi Mi 11i, which you can easily remove.
Xiaomi in MIUI 12.5 offers users new features that look small, but can improve the user experience. In the new version, for example, MIUI has become faster, lighter and more stable, and its rendering power has improved 20 times. On the other hand, the design of visual capabilities has been improved so that the user has a more realistic experience while working with the phone. Other features for personalizing system sounds as well as animated wallpapers entitled “Super Wallpaper” have been added to the new version of MIUI.
Hardware, gaming experience and Xiaomi Mi 11i battery
Undoubtedly, the strength of Mi 11i goes back to its chip, the beating heart of Xiaomi’s flagship economy, the Snapdragon 888, is the most powerful chip in the Android world right now. This module is produced with Samsung’s 5nm lithography 5LPE and, according to Qualcomm, brings over 25% improvement in CPU performance and 35% improvement in GPU performance compared to Snapdragon 865.
The Snapdragon 888 was equipped with powerful, new Cortex-X1 and Cortex-A78 cores before any other chip. This chip combines a 2.84 GHz Cortex-X1 core, three 2.42 GHz Cortex-A78 mid-cores and four 1.80 GHz Cortex-A55 low-powered cores as a central processor.
The task of graphics processing in the Snapdragon 888 chip is the responsibility of the Adreno 660 module. Qualcomm doesn’t know much about the details and technical specifications of the GPU, but says the Adreno 660 performs better than 43 percent in AI-related processes, 35 percent in graphics processing and 20 percent in productivity (in performance identical to the past).
The important thing about Adreno 660 is the addition of variable rate shading. This feature, previously added to ninth-generation consoles, allows the developer to shade low-key areas of game frames in less detail, allowing GPU processing power to be used in more important areas of frames.
Qualcomm says the new Hexagon 780 digital signal processor (DSP) sees changes such as aggregation of scalar, vector and tensor accelerators, and now, along with the CPU and GPU, it can perform 26 trillion computing operations related to artificial intelligence per second, allowing Snapdragon 888 computing power to be more than 73 more than Snapdragon 865.
Thanks to its triple image signal processor (ISP), the Snapdragon 888 now has the ability to instantly shoot with three 28-megapixel sensors or shoot three 4K HDR videos at the same time. Qualcomm’s flagship chip also features 8K30 and 4K120 10-bit video recording and playback with H.265 codec and Dolby Vision, HDR10+, HDR10 and HLG standards.
The flagship Snapdragon 888 chip also supports 5G networks with download and upload speeds of over 7,500 and 3,000 Mbps thanks to the X60 modem.
Xiaomi’s flagship economy phone, along with Snapdragon 888, uses 8 GB of LPDDR5 RAM, 128 or 256 GB of UFS 3.1 high-speed memory. Since there is no memory card port, we recommend that you get the appropriate model for Mi 11i depending on your needs.
Mi 11i compared to Mi 10 T, Xiaomi’s older economic flagship with the Snapdragon 865 chip, is experiencing a 10% improvement in CPU-centric performance, which is lower than the 25 claims Qualcomm’s percentage is qualcomm, but in the field of graphics we see significant improvements, the Mi 11i with the Snapdragon 888 chip displays more than 45 percent more computing power in GeekBench Benchmark.
To assess the performance stability level of The Mi 11i, we first went to our 20-step stress test 3DMark, but Xiaomi’s economic flagship stopped it at the end of the test by displaying the error message “Overheated device”. As an alternative solution, we ran 3DMark Wild Life graphics 15 times consecutively on Mi 11i, Xiaomi smartphone with only 8% performance loss, appeared in the second test very admirably.
It seems that the stability of the Extraordinary Performance of Mi 11i in the stress test comes at the expense of an over-temperature increase, as you can see in the photos above, the temperature of the Mi 11i rear panel has reached over 46 degrees Celsius at the end of the test.
Despite taking advantage of snapdragon 888’s powerful chip, Xiaomi’s economic flagship both pubg Mobile and Call of Duty Mobile play at a refresh rate of 60 Hz, so our tests show that pubg gaming does not exceed the rate of about 52 to 60 frames per second even with mid HD graphics settings. The popular game also ran CoD with the best graphics settings available and a stable rate of 57 to 60 frames per second.
The Mi 11i uses a not-so-bulky battery with a capacity of 4,520 mAh to power its requirements. Xiaomi does not provide accurate figures on the Mi 11i charging but says the phone’s battery can make you needless of the charger all day.
Xiaomi’s economic flagship is deprived of the sour expensive brothers’ ultra-fast charging system, but its 33W charger still displays excellent performance. The Mi 11i requires an hour and 20 minutes to fully charge.
Xiaomi Mi 11i with 200 nit brightness (approximately 80% brightness slider) and 120 Hz display refresh rate, under conditions all wireless connections and speaker output were disconnected, the Wironal benchmark video with HD resolution was played continuously for 21 hours and 31 minutes, which is a very significant result. Since Mi 11i in the Video Streaming App (Google Photos) reduces the refresh rate to 60 Hz, changing the renovation rate settings will make no difference to the duration of the video playback.
In the PCMark test, which reflects how long the display stays on in regular applications such as web surfing, photo or text editing and video playback, with a brightness of 200 nits and a refresh rate of 120 Hz,for 9 hours and 5 It lasted 0 minutes, which is not a significant number compared to other competitors, but if we reduce the renovation rate to 60 Hz in the same test, the charge of the device will increase to 12 hours and 13 minutes.
Xiaomi Mi 11i Camera
Just like the flagship Xiaomi Mi 11, its cheaper brother also benefits from the combination of the wide-angle + ultravide + macro camera, and even at first glance it seems that their main cameras are the same and both use a 108-megapixel sensor, but with a little precision one can notice the stark differences between the cameras.
The main Mi 11i uses Samsung’s 108-megapixel HM2 sensor with 1/1.52 inch dimensions and 0.7 micrometer pixels, followed by a wide lens with f/1.8. By calculating the fingertips, it can be found that the HM2 sensor is about 15 percent smaller compared to the HM3 model used in flagship products such as the Mi 11, on the other hand, there is no optical stabilizer in the Mi 11i lens, so the main camera of the Mi 11i, whether in terms of sensitivity to light, or photography in the dark, will not be on the surface of its flagged brother.
The 108-megapixel 11 IP camera uses nonacell color filter instead of the Tetracell filter used in the Mi 11, meaning that with every 9 adjacent pixels, one of the three main RGB colors is recorded so that the camera, in default, takes photos with a resolution of 12 megapixels and large pixels of 2.1 micrometers. The purpose of using such a filter is to absorb more light and experience improved photography in the dark.
Xiaomi’s Mi 11i provides the user with a native resolution of 108 megapixels of the main camera sensor, in which case HDR and AI capabilities will not be available. Using 108 MP mode in daylight will work, as the phone should simulate the normal Bayer filter function on 108-megapixel cameras by approximation of color from adjacent pixels.
Just like the Redmi Note 10 Pro, Xiaomi Mi 11i uses an 8-megapixel IMX355 sensor with a very small size of 1.4.0 inches and 1.12 micrometer pixels to capture ultra-wide photos. The camera lacks optical stabilization or autofocus and uses an ultra-wide lens with a 118 degree field of view and an f/2.2 aperture, for comparison, the Mi 11 uses a far larger 1/3.06-inch sensor.
Dynamic range and details of Xiaomi Mi 11i photos
Although, just like its economic brother, the Redmi Note 10 Pro uses the same HM2 sensor in the main camera, with the help of snapdragon’s powerful chip, it detects the subject very quickly and accurately, and, if needed, implements the HDR algorithm on the image, thus making its photos in the same conditions and auto HDR mode, much wider dynamic range. Mi 11i performs very well in detail processing and noise control.
As you can see in the images, the ultravioid camera has a much weaker performance than the main camera in terms of dynamic range (pay attention to the roof and hood of cars), processing details of complex subjects such as the horns of trees and noise levels.
Color Photos of Xiaomi Mi 11i
The main camera produces Mi 11i colors largely close to reality, but as you can see in the images [note the floors and the foliage of trees], the ultraviolent camera produces slightly warm and relatively saturated colors.
Difference in 108-megapixel photo details and digital zoom
If you don’t have a problem with the size of about 20 MB of 108-megapixel photos, the details of the photos are much higher than the normal digital zoom [pay attention to the municipal logo on the watch or the horns of trees behind the watch]. In normal digital magnification, photos are somewhat soft, which reduces their details.
Xiaomi Mi 11i camera function in the dark
Main Camera
Xiaomi Mi 11i’s main camera in Photo mode also takes satisfying photos with in the dark of night and performs well in moderation of highlight exposure, using night mode, taking details out of the shadows [in the images below to the trees and columns of the building], but this attempt to light up the shadows to loss of detail in the bright parts of the image [to showcase the shop] Pay attention to indoors] as well.
Ultravide Camera
The Ultrawade Mi 11i camera captures in the dark photos catastrophic with burnt highlights and shadows of darkness. Using night mode doesn’t work miracles, but it does a little less than the depth of the disaster.
Xiaomi Mi 11i Portrait & Selfie Photo
The Mi 11i rely on Samsung’s 20-megapixel, 1/3.4-inch sensor with 0.8 micrometer pixels and a not-so-open f/2.5 lens to capture selfies. None of the main cameras and selfies have an interesting and accurate function in separating the subjects from the background and implementing the Bokeh effect. Dynamic range, on the other hand, is also very limited in photos [note the details lost in windows]. Aside from these, the portraits are soft.
Photo Macro Xiaomi Mi 11i review
For macro photography, The Mi 11i uses a 5-megapixel camera with a lens of 50 mm, an f/2.4 aperture, and autofocus. The macro camera has the ability to focus on the subject at a distance of 3 to 7 cm and its depth of field is very limited, so in the narrow focus range, the subject is recorded in great detail and many parts of the photo are faded.
The Mi 11i with the main camera can record 8K30, 4K30 and 4K60 videos, but the camera only shoots at 1080p30 resolution. If we give up the not-so-functional and promotional 8K shooting capability, 4K 11i videos with bitrate of about 50 Mbps,whether in detail, dynamic range, contrast, are very well evaluated, but ultravide videos in all areas are below the main camera.
Summing up and comparing Xiaomi Mi 11i with competitors
Xiaomi Mi 11i offers excellent processing power and stability in its price range, among all the smartphones we have examined so far, it has one of the most accurate displays and captures high-quality 4K videos, but aside from the above, the specterable feature cannot be found in which the price difference of 90$ with the Galaxy S20 FE 5G is justified.
Xiaomi’s economic flagship is by no means an inefficient phone, but it should be noted that its status is threatened by its flag-bearing brother and the Galaxy S20 FE 5G. With a little more payment, the user can buy the Xiaomi Mi 11 with the same chip, a much more enjoyable photographic experience, an eye-catching 10-bit display and premium body, or, by paying a smaller amount, seize samsung’s economic flagship with a slightly weaker chip and a more efficient camera.
The Review
Xiaomi Mi 11i
PROS
- OLED display with excellent brightness and accuracy
- Powerful Snapdragon 888 Chip
- Good main camera performance per day
CONS
- Medium charging
- Getting too hot
- Lack of wireless charging
